Bewarethewumpus

Author : Jae Miles, Staff Writer

Ravella is a blighted world, riven and sundered before man ventured into space. The race or races responsible are hopefully dust as well, because the fury they vented upon this planet was breathtaking in its totality. But whoever – or whatever – held Ravella dear was not to be deterred by the apocalypse visited upon them. They adapted.

It was sheer luck that put an imaging satellite over the Gorge that day. It was a coincidence of timing and position that made everyone involved shake their heads and glance about nervously. They were puzzled by chill pangs of a supposedly long-dead thing that used to be called superstition.

On a world ravaged by winds that howled across glassy tundra that spanned whole continents, a single rift sheltered a planet’s ecosystem. Aligned so perfectly that it was illuminated right down to its depths regularly enough by sunlight, yet concealed from discovery by anything except a lone viewer high above, at a precise time and place, for only a few minutes each day. Outside of that, the Gorge was shrouded in shadow and easily discounted as another barren, mile-deep crack amongst the many.

In the Gorge, the craggy, precipitous walls were festooned with flora that hung, sprawled or clung to surfaces you would have thought impossible for anything to thrive upon. Down in the depths, a floor was swept by a swift river that whirled past dozens of islands. Each cluster of islands exhibited differing habitats. Within those habitats, creatures that could not thrive in another environment lived alongside the visitors and predators from the walls. Some species had evolved to use the walls as their hunting grounds, but they were few. The sheer scale of the place was baffling. The scope of the ecological planning involved to balance this entirely artificial, two-hundred-mile long preserve has driven experienced ecodesigners to tears of joy and frustration.

Amidst this abundance of flora and fauna, there is only one trace of those who created it. On a single island, set at the westernmost end of the Gorge, a great boulder had been sliced in two – without trace of method. On one smooth face, graven eight inches deep, is a lexicon of stunning complexity. Once translated, it gave meaning to the paragraph graven upon the opposite face.

“Let the cause and participants of the conflict be unknown. Let that which we forgot be the thing that is remembered.”

Sciencemaster Adler and Templeton are back! In comic form! What trouble will they get up to this time? Nobody knows. Nobody.

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submitted by TheRadGasm [link] [296 comments]

Earlier today, the battle over new net neutrality regulations took a surprising shift as the White House very publicly recommended the FCC take the Title II reclassification approach. And while consumer advocates are thrilled, the businesses that make their money charging you for internet access are about as pleased as you’d expect. Which is to say: even if the FCC somehow jumped on Title II tomorrow, there’s a long, ugly legal fight brewing.

Verizon, which has already threatened to sue the FCC if Title II touches any part of the internet, would like to remind everyone that they will sue the FCC if Title II touches any part of the internet: “Reclassification under Title II … would be a radical reversal of course that would in and of itself threaten great harm to an open Internet, competition and innovation. That course will likely also face strong legal challenges and would likely not stand up in court,” they write, before encouraging the FCC to stick with section 706, which “major broadband providers and their trade groups have conceded” the FCC can do.

Verizon, however, will not be alone in hauling the FCC to court if the commission does its actual job. In their statement, AT&T calls Title II regulation, “a mistake that will do tremendous harm to the Internet and to U.S. national interests.”

AT&T adds that (despite evidence to the contrary) net neutrality is a “hypothetical problem posed by certain political groups whose objective all along has been to bring about government control of the Internet.” And in the vein of keeping government out of the internet, AT&T says, such a decision should rest with Congress and not with the “unelected” FCC.

They close with their own legal threat: “If the FCC puts such rules in place, we would expect to participate in a legal challenge to such action.”

Comcast is equally pleased with the strong potential of Title II becoming reality. They join with AT&T in saying that Title II needs to be a choice made by Congress, and not the FCC. “This would be a radical reversal that would harm investment and innovation,” Comcast exec David L. Cohen said, “as today’s immediate stock market reaction demonstrates. And such a radical reversal of consistent contrary precedent should be taken up by the Congress.”

Comcast, notably, did not threaten legal action in their initial statement, as so many other companies did — perhaps because they want the FCC on their good side to approve their merger with Time Warner Cable.

And for all the ISPs large and small that didn’t issue their own statements, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association — the industry’s big trade group — also condemned the White House statement, saying, “this tectonic shift in national policy, should it be adopted, would create devastating results.”

They, too, seem ready to see the FCC in court: “There is no substantive justification for this overreach, and no acknowledgment that it is unlawful to prohibit paid prioritization under Title II. We will fight vigorously against efforts to impose this backwards policy.”

But this morning’s statement was from the White House. It’s the FCC that has the ultimate say. That leaves FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, who spent the morning trapped next to his Mini Cooper when pro-regulation protesters descended on his house.

The FCC’s official statement says only that “we will incorporate the President’s submission into the record,” as with every other public comment.

But Wheeler’s statement does make one thing clear: the issue is complicated. “We found we would need more time to examine these” various approaches, Wheeler writes. That pushes back the timeline for a likely new rule from the end of this year to sometime in 2015 instead.

There’s typically no shortage of interesting happenings at Walmart stores across the country. Just last week a teenager allegedly set fire to a display of christmas-themed stuffed animals, and this week a man allegedly set-off a firecracker in the video game aisle.

WPTV-TV reports that a man was arrested Saturday after an explosion and fire occurred inside a Florida Walmart store.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office reports that deputies were called to the store after security heard an explosion.

Security footage from Walmart showed a man lighting a firecracker, placing it on the bottom shelf of the display and walking away before it exploded.

A suspect arrested by deputies says he was approached by an unknown person who offered to steal a video game for him if he created a distraction inside the store.

The unknown individual allegedly told the man that there was a firecracker on the bottom shelf next to the store’s XBox games.

Local authorities say the blast caused burn marks on the floor and shelving, as well as destroyed $29 worth of video games.

The man was arrested and charged with first-degree arson and criminal mischief.

Thomas Hartman charged with setting off firecracker inside Walmart [WPTV-TV]

Via

sernacht:

So, I was in the car today and saw someone with the license plate “X0DUS3 5”, so I thought it was like Exodus 3:5 and I looked it up, and do you know what it said?

"Do not come any closer"

I’m not sure what I was expecting.

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DragonDePlatino has released a new ROM hack for EarthBound Zero that changes the game in many neat, interesting ways!

Mother: 25th Anniversary Edition aims to make Mother much more enjoyable for both Earthbound fans and those playing it for the first time.

All enemy graphics, NPC sprites and tiles are be redrawn from scratch to be more faithful to the clay models. The goofy enemies are goofier and the creepy enemies are creepier. A shiny new font and title screen was added, too!

The overworld has been tweaked to be much less bleak and repetitive, so it’s harder to get lost. There is more scenery, areas are more colorful and confusing areas like Duncan’s factory have been simplified. On the other hand, tiny areas like the graveyard and Crystal Cavern have been lengthened.

There are also a lot of changes under the hood. Enemies will yield slightly more exp and the encounter rate has been readjusted. The “Dangerous Foe” battle theme is used less often and party members will be met at a higher level. DragonDePlatino’s goal in creating this hack was to create a game easier than the original but still very challenging.

And last but not least, this hack uses Tomato’s official Mother 1 + 2 translation, adapted for the NES. Over 1400 lines of text have been altered to create connections with the rest of the series, improve clarity and shorten reading time. This hack will also feature much quicker battle text courtesy of vince94. Battles progress almost twice as quickly!

You can find the ROM patch here!

You should go read Jed A. Rakoff’s essay in The New York Review of Books, in which the senior federal district judge tries to explain why innocent people so often plead guilty.

But even if you have better things to do this weekend than digest Rakoff’s thorough, convincing, 4,400-word essay, it’s still worth considering why at least 20,000 people have pled guilty to and gone to jail for felonies they did not commit — if you very conservatively take criminologists’ lowest estimates, and cut them in half.

Rakoff identifies three ways the criminal justice system obstructs its own “truth seeking mechanism,” a trial by jury, which Rakoff calls a “shield against tyranny” and which Thomas Jefferson famously called “the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”

1. By embracing the increasingly-popular plea bargain. Some 97 percent of federal trials were resolved last year through plea bargain, the offer of a lesser charge and a reduced sentence if the defendant forgoes a trial. But the practice, which has never really taken hold in other countries, is, to Rakoff, “the devil’s pact.” Plea bargains happen behind closed doors, without judicial oversight, and are weighted largely in favor of the prosecutor, who has access to police reports, witness interviews, and forensic test reports. Prosecutors also have the discretion to shape the charges brought at trial, and until last year federal attorneys routinely used that power to bully people into plea bargains; any defendant who sought a trial would face the most severe charges with the lengthiest prison sentences as a matter of policy.

In contrast, defense attorneys typically only meet with defendants after they have been arrested and can only interview them through “arduous restrictions imposed by most jails,” as Rakoff puts it. The notion that a plea bargain is a contractual mediation between two relatively equal parties, Rakoff argues, “is a total myth”.

2. Through mandatory minimum sentences. These rules effectively took sentencing power away from judges and transferred it to prosecutors, who can ensure uncooperative defendants spend a long time in prison by bringing charges with the longest minimum sentences. In 2012, the average sentence for defendants brought up on drugs charges who took a plea deal equaled five years and four months, while the average sentence for those who went to trial was sixteen years. The combination of mandatory sentences and prosecutorial discretion forces the defendant into a grim cost-benefit analysis: run the risk of losing the case and serve the maximum sentence or take a reduced charge, at a reduced sentence, even when innocent.

3. Via the unfettered rise of prosecutorial power. Prosecutors have far more power to exert their will than any other party involved in the criminal justice system. The one mechanism that could check their power is the jury trial, which is becoming “virtually extinct” in federal court, Rakoff writes.

One possible solution to all these problems — aside from repealing mandatory minimum sentences and generally reducing the severity of sentences — is greater judicial oversight after indictment. Rakoff’s proposal is for a magistrate to meet with a prosecutor and defendant independently, ask them to provide evidence, and make their own propositions on whether the case is strong enough to go to trial. The magistrate could also interview witnesses and even the defendant.

“I am under no illusions that this suggested involvement of judges in the plea-bargaining process is a panacea,” Rakoff concludes. “But would not any program that helps to reduce the shame of sending innocent people to prison be worth trying?

Photo: Mark Humphrey/AP

The post Three Ways Courts Screw the Innocent Into Pleading Guilty appeared first on The Intercept.

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New Comic: Economaniacal

During a two-hour pursuit in Denver, Colorado, 28-year-old Ryan Cole Stone hijacked multiple cars while attempting to flee the police, including an SUV with a four-year-old boy seated in the back.

Yessssssss. Finally!

For those that don't know: Bee and Puppycat is a show by Natasha Allegri, a character designer and storyboard artist for Adventure Time. If you like Adventure Time, Sailor Moon, or cute things, chances are good you'll like this show, too. The premise is basically: a young woman goes on intergalactic adventures with a mysterious creature called Puppycat, all in the name of paying rent and getting by (yes, part of the show takes place in the real world). But, that's sort of like saying Adventure Time is about a boy and his dog. Technically true, but it's a description that misses a lot of the charming elements of the show. You kind of just...need to watch it.

Bee and Puppycat was Kickstarted last year, and some of the new episodes from that effort dropped today. Above, you have episode one, which is all about food. Here's episode two:

Puppycat is such a cute brat. Ughhhh.

If you liked these episodes, and haven't happened to watch the originals, you should! If nothing else, they set up the fiction/world better, and you get to see how Bee landed on her special temp job situation.

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Last night's episode of South Park was an ode to all things freemium, and as you might expect from the longrunning comedy show, they went in hard on the unethical free-to-play menace that has been plaguing video games for the past few years.

I won't spoil much about the episode—which you can watch here starting Thursday if you're in a supported region—other than to say that they nailed it. Anyone who has fallen thrall to the likes of Farmville or EA's Dungeon Keeper will feel their thumbs twitching. Also, there are demons.

We've got clips, of course. Here's South Park's explanation of what "freemium"—the "mium" is Latin for "not really"—actually means:

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And here, from later in the episode, is South Park's explanation of what freemium ACTUALLY means:

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"Don't think about that! Think about all the money!" Sound familiar?

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(630): How hard do you think it would be to make a drinking game out of a Slip-N-Slide? Asking for a friend.

Speaking of the Devil, did you see the Democrats lose on Tuesday night!!! I guess it is true what they say!!!!!

See you on Friday, no matter what!!!